The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri

When I read the Lowland a couple years ago, I was aware that I wasn't "beginning at the beginning" so to speak when it came to Lahiri's fiction. The Lowland was a moving story of two brothers that suffered only in comparison to the fact that I had read Cutting For Stone earlier that year and I found it the superior of the "brothers" books. (You can read my review of The Lowland here).

In The Namesake, Lahiri takes on the first generation conundrum of not connecting to our parent's culture and forging ahead our own lives in the only country we know. (I say this tongue in cheek because I'm a first generation American born to Canadian parents, aside from knowing the British name for things, there have not been many challenges for me in making my own identity as an American). But for Gogol Ganguli, this transition is harsh and beautifully rendered by Lahiri through the very specific fact of Gogol's name.

Gogol is named for his father's favorite author. A stand-in name until the formal letter arrives from his great-grandmother, Gogol becomes his formal name when said letter is lost somewhere in transit from India to Massachusetts. Gogol grows up resenting his name and resenting his parents' lifestyle. When he leaves for Yale, it gives him an opportunity at crafting a new identity. He changes his name to Nikhil, a name chosen by  his parents but abandoned by Gogol in his first days of kindergarten.

He gets his first real girlfriend and tries to craft an identity through their shared interests. He studies architecture and breaks up with his college girlfriend. He moves to New York and meets another woman, wealthy and WASPish with a family home in New Hampshire and a Brownstone in the City. He loses himself in their identity. Drinking their wine, keeping their schedule. But a family tragedy makes him take stock of his choices. He thinks long and hard about how much searching for his own identity has made him unfairly reject the humanity of his own parents.

In agreeing to a date with a childhood friend, he hopes to recapture some of the legacy of his parents he has let slip away. But because Gogol's motivations are never quite his own or well crafted enough to come from an honest place, the eventual marriage is stifling and uncomfortable.

I love how well made Gogol is in the story. At some point it appears that Lahiri drifts into contemplation of Moushumi and I wonder if Lahiri wasn't a bit more taken with her than with Gogol. In the brief chapters in which she appears, Moushumi is both fuller and more vibrant than even Ashoke or Ashima, Gogol's parents.

I really do enjoy Lahiri's writing, and it's interesting coming back to her early work after reading The Lowland because her writing was so much tighter in her later novel. But as an exploration of the conflicting loyalties of a first generation child, The Namesake is both moving and clinical.

4/5 Stars.